Blog

Fish have been in the newspapers a lot recently – and I don’t just mean drenched in vinegar and wrapped up with chips.

Unless you live in the Mariana Trench you will be aware of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight crusade to end the absurd practice of fishing vessels dumping bycatch and adding to the pressure on sea stocks. But it isn’t just the seas which are becoming a more hostile place for fish – there are also massive declines amongst freshwater species.

A study from the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) featured in the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend found that freshwater fish are the most endangered group of animals on earth, with more than a third threatened with extinction.

Some of the most spectacular global species under threat include the massive Mekong giant catfish and the equally impressive freshwater stingray family. But closer to home British species clinging to the edge include eels, the Shetland charr and the herring-like gwyniad which is found in just one Welsh lake.

In Celtic mythology salmon are wise creatures and anyone eating them takes on their wisdom. Unfortunately Celtic mythology seems to have got this one wrong – we’ve been feasting on the riches in our rivers and lakes for centuries and there’s nothing clever about the way we have treated these precious habitats. And sadly, declines in some British fish will only be helped with international co-operation.

Salmon, trout, eels and many other species of river fish have declined dramatically in UK waters in recent decades (and I haven’t even got on to avian, insect, mammal and plantlife along our riverbanks). The reasons are all too familiar – pollution, over abstraction, poorly planned development – but unless people are aware of these issues nothing will be done. And everyone interested in our rivers will share the loss – one more reason for all of us to push for a bold and sensible Water White Paper.

The Salmon of Wisdom doesn’t seem to be working – so it is heartening that the media and the wider public are finally starting to understand the depth of the problems facing our rivers.

Nik Shelton
RSPB

The Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) is not against hydropower per say. We believe that increasing the uptake of renewables in the UK is fundamental to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and attempting to avert climate change. Run-of-river hydropower can play a very small part in this, but we must ensure these schemes are not having an adverse impact on the rivers, and particularly our migratory fish, before they get given the go ahead. At the moment many questions remain unanswered such as ‘what are the cumulative impact of multiple schemes within a river system? Will this lead to increased fish mortality? Will this disrupt fish migration timing upstream and/or downstream? Even if only the 5,000 top priority sites, identified in an EA scoping report, were developed, this could average 40 or so schemes in each catchment- the truth is we don’t know what impact this will have and if we can still ensure that the legal requirements of the Water Framework Directive to achieve good ecological status (or good ecological potential) in all rivers and for deterioration will be met.

On the 1st July the Environment Agency (EA) launched a consultation on revisions to the Hydropower Good Practice Guidelines, first published in August 2009. It will run for 12 weeks, closing on 23rd September 2011. Full details of the consultation can be found on the EA website

If you have an interest in rivers please take the time to response, especially with evidence or experience on hydropower applications/schemes on your local rivers. The S&TA, along with the Angling Trust (AT), will be producing a crib sheet shortly to help with your responses, which you will be able to find on our website. The revised guidelines are expected to be published in December 2011. I sit on the Hydropower Technical Group, so if you have any enquires please contact me: janina@salmon-trout.org .

Join our call for more research and monitoring on the impact of hydropower schemes so we can be sure that this energy really is ‘green’.

Janina Gray
Salmon & Trout Association